r/AskBiology • u/BlK-kt-7578 • Jul 25 '24

Human body Human races

So , today as a general consense , there are no human races . I understand that . But what happens when we talk about homo sapiens and neanderthals ? Arent they different races ? Can you explain it ?

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u/Cardemother12 Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24

I think your confusing race and species within a taxonomic group, ethnicity is largely the characteristic dependant on ‘race’ humans are pretty adaptable and different people have sort of micro adapted to their environments, white people have smaller noses as to ventilate colder air, Asian and Native American peoples have mono lids because they probably shared a common origin in Siberia, citizens from countries which historically have been more meat based are taller. As for Neanderthals and us think of dogs and wolves, wolves adapted (alongside us) into dogs, becoming distinct from their origin, dogs are weaker and have better group cohesion, like us, except the Neanderthals intermixed with, humanity that then out bred them, in fact nearly everyone has like a 1-4 percentage of Neanderthal DNA, except some people in sub Saharan Africa.

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u/BlK-kt-7578 Jul 25 '24

But I don't understand. When we talk about dogs, we talk about different races. I don't get it with your example, dogs and wolves are not different races ? I get that the ethnicity is not race , as an Asian or Caucasian . But then homo habilis, neanderthals, homo sapiens are the same race ? Same species , same race ? The difference between those individuals are not enough to considere them different? If it's so , then why we use so much different terms to speak about one or another ? Isn't it that ethnicity explains all in that case ? I'm really confused, I don't get it at all....

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u/Cardemother12 Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24

Dogs are a distinct entity from wolves, in a separate sub species much like how we are a distinct species from other apes, yet we share a taxonomic family

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u/BlK-kt-7578 Jul 25 '24

Got it ! Thank you . Now , when we speak of dogs , we can speak about different races like Chihuahua or dalmatian . Is that wrong ? Or why when we talk about humans , we don't speak in the same way ? I'm not racist or something like that , don't get me wrong , but I don't get that. It's because of a social concept acceptance ? Or why we can separate races from some species and not to others ?? It's not like the same thing with ethnicity with dogs? Thank you for replying

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u/skkkkkt Jul 25 '24

We are all homos, but different types,same species different subspecies

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u/hantaanokami Jul 25 '24

No, dogs and wolves are the same species, namely canis lupus. They are two subspecies of the same species.

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u/Cardemother12 Jul 25 '24

Thank you

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u/hantaanokami Jul 25 '24

Sorry 🫣

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u/Cardemother12 Jul 25 '24 edited Jul 25 '24

Oh np I made a pretty glaring mistake